Chapter 140 - Name and Reality 63 {91 Solo} (216–217 Takeshita Deciphers the Code 2)
"The moment I thought there must be a meaning in the kanji itself if Motohashi intended to draw attention to the kanji for 'yake,' it hit me. I noticed that the words 'ji' (自) and 'ki' (棄) were each in the first letter Motohashi wrote. 'Ji' from 'onozuto' (自ずと) and 'ki' from 'kikyaku' (棄却) respectively!"
"Ah, so that's it! And were you able to decipher it by using one of those as the starting or ending point!?"
"Well, please calm down a bit. So, regarding the zigzag reading considered with 'feels like rising waves,' for now, in the way of tracing a series of peaks (∧∧∧∧) horizontally, neither the 'ji' from 'onozuto' nor the 'ki' made any sense whether as a starting or ending point. Then, when I tried reading with a series of peak-valley sequences (∧∨∧∨), it turned into words that seemed quite plausible starting from 'ki.' Please try reading from 'ki' to the last line, the final line."
"Wait a minute! I'll try it myself now."
Receiving that statement, Nishida began to follow the first letter with his eyes and wrote down the corresponding characters in the margin of a nearby newspaper.
(Premise of vertical reading, display environment required where 37 characters fit in one line. Starting from "ki" (棄) of "kikyaku" (棄却) in the 19th line of the text)
Dear Sirs,
The time you receive this letter is probably around early October 2002, isn't it? Since the person I asked to send the letter while I was alive doesn't know your current affiliations, I had him send it to "Engaru Station" for the time being. Perhaps it was passed around somewhere and you ended up receiving it much later than the scheduled time, but that's not our responsibility. If you're unlucky, it might have been lost somewhere, but if you're reading this now, such a thing onozuto (naturally) couldn't have happened.
By the way, the person I asked—you'll probably check the fingerprints on the envelope, so you'll know—is Kuboyama, who has a prior record for attempted murder. It seems the execution of the death penalty is suddenly announced on the day, and in my case, since my ties with my relatives are cut, I'm not allowed visitation, so after asking the Prison Chaplain who took care of me to hand this letter to Kuboyama, it was further passed to Kuboyama, and the arrangement was that Kuboyama would send it later and you would be reading it in the autumn of 2002. There was a way to have Kuboyama send it beforehand, but I thought it would be better to hand it over with the suicide note written just before the execution, so it became like this—no, it should have become like this.
Now, I've explained the circumstances of how the letter reached you. And that Kuboyama, looking from 2002, did not return to the syndicate after being released eighteen years ago in order to go straight. And although he is not my immediate subordinate, he is like a younger brother to me. While I suffered kikyaku (rejection) twice until my death penalty was finalized, he ignored his lawyer's advice to appeal after the first trial's verdict was issued, did not appeal, and his sentence was finalized. He went to the slammer according to the first trial's verdict. Even when I was excommunicated, Kuboyama, who was not directly involved, immediately showed his loyalty to me and helped me; he's a serious guy. Well, there's no such thing as being serious after committing attempted murder. However, such a guy has no ulterior motives, so he ends up on the side being used by the higher-ups. When he shot the rival syndicate's young head as a hitman, he was ultimately exploited in that way. It's pitiful, as they say, but a yakuza syndicate is after all the same as a corporate organization. However, fortunately, Kuboyama was young enough to start over. If he had returned to the syndicate after being released, it might have been putting the cart before the horse, but he was able to go straight immediately. Anyway! The Sada Minoru incident happened on September 26, 1987. Naturally, it's already past the statute of limitations, right? By the time you see this. Solving it was impossible! In other words, the investigation of the case ended with the facts not being well understood after all. Needless to say, of course, it's on the premise that the investigation probably didn't go well, and perhaps you've uncovered everything, but thinking about it, that's probably not the case. Honestly, since I was excommunicated, nothing good has happened, so the fact that the investigation over there wasn't going well became a great joy. While watching you wander around confused by my words and actions, I was relieving stress... Especially the sight of the straight-laced Takeshita holding his head was the best reward for me. However, on the other hand, Takeshita is quite a sharp one among those I know. In that sense, I think it was better than anything to have been able to face off with Takeshita before dying. If Takeshita is seeing this letter, I want him to understand that's my unfeigned true intention. I'm quite happy to have won an interesting game at the end of my life. On the other hand, it probably isn't interesting for Takeshita. Now, in this letter, considering that it might be censored when taken out, I don't intend to write anything specific, but since you no longer have investigative authority due to the statute of limitations, you've already given up, right? I'll just stick to a victory declaration. Even if there's a statute of limitations, it's better not to say anything until the end. I can't betray anyone, and I intend to take this to the grave. By the way, since I've had some mental leeway, I've recently awakened to studying. I was originally the type who could do school studies, but since I focused only on bad things, in middle and high school. It's too late, way too late to finally feel like studying, but the Prison Chaplain says that if you have the will, age doesn't matter. Surely the Prison Chaplain doesn't seriously think so from one to ten, but he wouldn't say such a thing with only lies. Taking it somewhat seriously, I've changed my mind and am looking at various textbooks and the like that I once threw away over thirty years ago. However, as expected, it wasn't so easy to make up for the debt of not having studied for all these years with just raw determination. Especially mathematics was completely beyond me. I had no choice but to start over from around the sixth grade of elementary school, but I was out by around the first year of high school. On the other hand, Japanese was easy even in high school, so I'm working especially hard on that. English was originally something I could do quite well—oops, if I say unnecessary things, I might be prying. In that way, while studying daily focusing on Japanese and English, I'm writing this when I find spare time. I have to finish writing it somehow before the execution that will come someday. I can imagine even before that day comes that there will absolutely be no such leeway just before the death penalty.
Now, after writing at length with a smug face and making you angry, although I was only involved with you for a very short period, it's a fact that it was a fun time. In that sense, I'm truly grateful to you. Farewell.
Ki / gen / wa / ma / da / saki / no / nen / matsu / ya / ka / ra / zen / zen / mon / dai / nai / wa / na / shin / zou / wa / ta / da / no / ni / ki / ke / kii / wa / a / do / wa / ro / kkou / to / hi / na / ko / ya / ka / ra
Nishida was looking at the characters he had written down in order, and although words that seemed plausible like "nenmatsu" (end of the year), "shinzou" (truth/heart), and "yakara" (fellows/because) caught his eye, it didn't seem to make sense as a whole immediately.
"Does this really form a sentence? 'Shinzou' feels like it's exactly it, though. It's jumbled, so I might have made a mistake... Is this correct?"
While throwing out the doubt that it was indeed suspicious, he confirmed the characters he had picked out one by one with Takeshita.
"Yours is exactly right, Nishida-san. If you connect the horizontal lines (T/N: vertical lines in the case of horizontal writing) that become the reference height for the peaks and valleys from 'ki' to 'ka' just before the last character 'ra' with a single line, it becomes easier to understand, but there's no mistake that it's correct. And while there are some parts that are a bit difficult to grasp, this is how I read it."
Saying so, he began to explain.
"'Kigen wa mada saki no nenmatsu yakara zenzen mondai nai wa na. Shinzou wa Tadano ni kike. Kiiwaado wa Rokkou to Hinako yakara' (The deadline is still the end of the year, so there's no problem at all. Ask Tadano for the truth. The keywords are Rokkou and Hinako). I deciphered it this way. I thought that things corresponding to the kanji for 'one' should probably be understood as 'onbiki' (T/N: long vowel marks), and then I managed to handle 'kii-wa-a-do' (keyword). After that, I thought a bit about converting 'hana' to 'wana' and 'raiki' to 'kike'."
"I see, so that's how it is!"
Nishida was impressed by the conversion Takeshita had thought of, but he naturally noticed that if this was correct... no, it should likely be correct, then a major problem was hidden.
"But if that's the case! Does the first part mean that Motohashi, unlike the text of the letter, properly understood the statute of limitations for Sada's murder? Does it mean he was just pretending to be a fool?"
"I had anticipated it to some extent before reading it, but isn't that exactly right? In other words, in the text of the letter, he mistakenly recognized the statute of limitations, and on that premise, after mocking us, he performed and provided a punchline that he was the fool, but in reality, he himself understood it properly."
"But would he go to all that trouble just for such a punchline performance?"
Nishida couldn't be satisfied at all, but,
"I think there's probably some larger meaning beyond just that. I don't know for sure, but maybe a camouflage? To make it look on the surface like he doesn't understand anything."
Takeshita presented his own answer.
"But there's no point in doing that to us, right? Since he wanted us to read the code."
"Yeah. So it's probably insurance in case someone he didn't want to see it happened to see it."
"Someone he didn't want to see it... does that mean the people involved in Sada's murder who Motohashi would know the 'truth' about?"
Nishida asked, getting ahead of himself on the premise of the deciphered code's content.
"I think that's likely the correct understanding."
Takeshita seemed to have conviction, even while saying likely.
"Come to think of it, even in the outward text, he wrote other things like 'dying without revealing anything.' Was that also part of the camouflage?"
"Probably. After all, he probably hates the idea of it being found out that he cooperated with the police. That became that kind of expression and the reason he made it a code, I suppose."
"Which means. On top of that, if he's saying in the code to ask the truth from Tadano? or whoever, what does this mean? Can we take it at face value?"
Nishida sought an answer as if asking Takeshita for help.
"I'll refrain from concluding at this point, but probably."
Since Nishida had asked several questions in a row, he spoke in a way that couldn't hide a slightly annoyed feeling. Even so, they were talking about an important matter, so he resumed the story as if he had regained his composure.
"I don't know clearly what the truth is, but since he's writing this on the premise that there are about three months left in the statute of limitations, I think there's a good chance it's information that could move the case significantly."
"In other words, you, Takeshita, produced the result Motohashi expected, and the probability that the information obtained from it can be expected to be significant has increased... Yes, as expected of Takeshita! By the way, my judgment in asking you and not wasting time was also quite something!"
Nishida praised Takeshita while performing the feat of praising himself at the end with self-deprecation, but Takeshita's response was unexpected.
"But I have to tell you something honestly... Certainly, I think I read what Motohashi wanted to convey, but I didn't notice at all at the time of the first deciphering that Motohashi had properly given hints to us within the tanka. Thinking about that, I can't say at all that I deciphered it perfectly, unfortunately... It's not that I won against Motohashi, but in the end, I was just used, I suppose."
Takeshita had a voice that sounded truly frustrated even through the phone conversation. Come to think of it, Nishida remembered being told a mysterious sentiment by Takeshita at the beginning of the conversation, but to Nishida, since the deciphering was successful, it was nothing but a meaningless statement.
"I don't understand? This result is precisely because you deciphered it properly, right?"
Failing to grasp what Takeshita wanted to say at all, he voiced his doubt, but Takeshita began to say something Nishida could never have imagined.
"Were you the type who was quite good at Chinese classics (kanbun) in high school, Nishida-san?"
Abruptly, an unexpected word was thrown at him as if to follow up, so Nishida was taken aback.
"Chinese classics!? At least I didn't like it, but does that have something to do with this?"
"Yeah. Please remember once more how you would write the word 'yake' in kanji."
"It was 'ji' (自) as in 'self' and 'ki' (棄) as in 'rejection,' and it was read as 'yake,' right?"
Like Motohashi, he felt a bit mocked by Takeshita too, but he reconsidered that this guy wasn't that type and replied in a consciously normal tone.
"That's right. Here, I thought he brought this flow just to draw attention to the characters 'ji' and 'ki' in the text. But after finally reading it, I realized for the first time that the kanji for 'ji' in 'jiki' also has a meaning."
"Hmm?"
Even at this point, Nishida failed to gauge the intent of Takeshita's words.
"That's why it's Chinese classics! In Chinese classics, 'ji' (自) represents the starting point. If you put a return mark after 'ji' and follow it with ◯ (自レ◯), it's read as '◯ yori' and means 'from ◯.' If the tanka itself is a hint, he added a hint with an element of Chinese classics there."
Having been explained this far, Nishida was somewhat reflecting on his high school days, but,
"In that case, is it connected to the fact that he was re-studying high school Japanese in the text of the first letter?"
When he asked,
"I think that's almost certainly the case. Not just the second one, but the text of the first one is also a set, as a hint. I think he probably came up with this because he was actually doing it... Honestly, I couldn't read at all from the start that Motohashi was thinking that far, unfortunately."
He clicked his tongue as if truly frustrated, but continued speaking.
"Furthermore, or rather, I think this is also almost certain, but the 'no' part of 'Yake no sue,' I think he was probably aiming for a Chinese classic interpretation of this too... Regarding this part, I had completely ignored it, but Motohashi mentions that 'not knowing the kanji for the yake part makes it lose its edge,' right?"
As Takeshita continued to say difficult things, Nishida couldn't keep up and asked as if squeezing it out,
"Hey, hey, I don't understand the meaning at all...?"
"In other words, when you hear 'the yake part,' you tend to interpret the 'no' as a particle added later to point to a specific location of the 'part' of 'yake,' no matter how you think about it. But what if we think that 'Yake no' in the tanka is a whole, and that it was attached to the word 'part'? In other words, the 'part' is the entirety of 'Yake no.' Normally, the way of writing 'the part of Yake no' would be more appropriate and easier to understand, but he dared not to do so. Because if he did, it would be easier to be found out. Anyway, if that's the case, Motohashi wanted us to think about what this whole thing would be in kanji. His true intention was likely that he wanted us to convert not just 'yake' to 'jiki' (自棄), but the entire 'Yake no' into kanji."
Takeshita's explanation was becoming even more troublesome, but something was starting to become visible to Nishida as well.
"I see. In other words, he wants the 'no' part to be in kanji too?"
"That's right. And I think you know there are several kanji called 'no' in Japanese. For example, 'no' as in 'nohara' (field). However, if the meaning of the particle in the tanka can be applied to kanji as is, I checked in the kanji dictionary earlier, and it's actually limited. 'No' (乃) from the Yokozuna 'Onokuni,' who is from Memuro Town like Section Chief Sawai in Engaru, is the first one. That's the very kanji that became the prototype for the hiragana 'no' and katakana 'no,' so it's exactly 'no.' And the other one is 'no' (之), which looks like the 'shinnnyou' (T/N: the 'road' radical) used in names like Masayuki. You know it, right? To be more precise, if you write 'shinnyou' in kanji, it actually uses '之' (T/N: written as 之繞), so it's exactly that... Oops, anyway, '之' is also called 'kore,' but that '之' is read as '...ni itaru' (to reach/lead to) just like the kanji 'itaru' (至) used in summer solstice (geshi) and winter solstice (touji), and it seems it also has the meaning of indicating the end point in Chinese classics. Regarding this, honestly, I didn't have it in my head at all. Or rather, we might not have learned it in Chinese classics."
Nishida was surprised again upon hearing this and confirmed,
"Which means, like 'ji' (自), it means the end point for the words after 'no' (之)?"
"That's right. In other words, if you write 'Yake no' all in kanji, it becomes 'Jiki no' (自棄之), and 'Yake no sue' as a whole becomes 'Jiki no sue' (自棄之末). If you interpret this in terms of Chinese classics, it becomes ['From (自) Ki (棄) to (之) the last (末) line'], which clearly points to the starting and ending points of this cryptogram as a Chinese classic sentence. I could never have even imagined putting a whole Chinese classic sentence into a single phrase of a tanka, where the meaning would be different if it were just kanji. Honestly, if he thought this far, I feel like I was completely beaten by Motohashi. But now that I've come this far, it's not an impossible story. He probably used 'jiki' (desperation), which is a state of mind that seems very plausible just before execution, in the letter written before the execution in anticipation."
Takeshita's tone was now more one of admiration than frustration. Nishida also had the impression of "he got us" after hearing the explanation.
"And based on that, when I looked at the death poem tanka once more, other parts of 'Yake no sue / fuminukamedomo / yomi no kata / mireba hon'i e / namidatsu kokochi' also started to bother me. I wondered if this entire tanka was a hint."
Takeshita was gradually starting to speak with fervor, but Nishida decided to let him be and listen rather than dampen his spirits.
"So, first, I wondered if the 'fumi' of 'fuminuku' (step through) could be interpreted as 'fumi' (letter/text). In that case, when I looked up 'nuku' in an archaic dictionary, it has the meaning of 'to deceive.' In other words, could the whole 'fuminuku' mean the cryptogram? That's what I thought. And as for 'Yomi no kata,' 'Yomi' is exactly 'yomi' (reading), and combined with 'kata,' it can be read as 'yomikata' (reading method). Furthermore, since the archaic word for 'miru' (to see) seems to have the meaning of 'to understand by looking,' it can be grasped as 'understanding the reading method.' 'Hon'i' (resolve/change of mind) can be read as 'hon'i' (true intention) with the same reading, and in that case, couldn't this death poem be read as follows?"
Takeshita spoke this much in one breath, then paused for a moment before continuing.
"'The reading method for the cryptogram where the true meaning is hidden, from the character Ki in the letter to the last line, can be understood if read as if waving up and down.' 'Kokochi' (feeling) can be thought of as the same as 'hon'i,' the true intention. And I'm not that certain about this, but the 'medomo' of 'nukamedomo' might be the form where 'mo' is attached to 'medo' (prospect/aim). Thinking that far, it becomes something like 'The prospect of creating a cryptogram with a hidden true meaning from the character Ki in the letter to the last line has been established, but the reading method can be understood if read as if waving up and down.' Well, the part about the prospect is subtle..."
"Ho... So as a whole, it's a rather beautiful hint."
Nishida instinctively let out a voice of admiration.
"I think exactly so myself. This is different in length, quality, and craftsmanship from the JAYWALK text created by reporter Shiino last time. Honestly, hats off. He might have been bored in his solitary cell, but judging from recent trends, while feeling the not-so-distant death penalty creeping up on a heinous criminal like Motohashi... Ah, come to think of it, if he was looking at information on the cabinet formation of the Hashizume reshuffled cabinet in the newspaper (T/N: Death row inmates can generally read newspapers depending on the article content, and in some cases, can copy or clip articles), he might have felt the approach of the death penalty more concretely... In the midst of that, he was probably silently and logically creating it. He must have felt like a puzzle craftsman..."
Takeshita analyzed while listing these things in response to Nishida's statement, but he had in mind things like Hashizume being a Prime Minister from the Umeda Faction, the successor to the Hakozaki Faction, and having appointed a Minister of Justice who was a proactive supporter of the death penalty during the reshuffle of the second cabinet in September '97 (Author's Note: Details have been added to the revised version of Name and Reality 1, dated October 11, '16).